


If a Tree Falls

by istia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Community: trope_bingo, M/M, POV Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:47:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/istia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek's having an ordinary wintry Tuesday night: until he gets home and finds a package on his doorstep. A fill for my Trope Bingo prompt "coming out (of the closet)".</p>
            </blockquote>





	If a Tree Falls

Derek ran on the narrow layer of snow that edged the sidewalk like a white painted line, avoiding the deceptively clear-looking middle. Not a lot of snow had fallen that afternoon, but it'd melted, then frozen solid as soon as dark fell, and what looked like clear cement this evening was actually a thin coating of ice. Slips on ice happened even to the sure-footed, so no point asking to look like a vulnerable fool even if getting hurt wasn't an issue.

He was jogging in place at the red light at Main and Vine, intending to cross the side street, when he noticed a woman, poised to cross Main, hesitating on the curb as the pedestrian light changed. She was middle-aged, looked sturdy enough, but she clearly knew a sheet of black ice possibly awaited her on the street. He could hear the thud of her increased heartbeat and her scent was a spiky mix of nervousness and impatience and worry.

He stopped jogging and stepped to her side, staying a foot away so as not to startle her too badly when he spoke.

"If we walk outside the crosswalk, in front of the cars, I don't think there'll be any ice. The cars warm the street there, and the painted lines themselves can be slippery when they're wet." New York had taught them that trick, two fleeing North Californian refugees not yet used to dealing with harsh winters.

She glanced up at him, eyes luminous in the streetlights behind flattering glasses, and he smiled down at her, trying to look harmless.

"Can I give you a hand across? It's hard to balance when your arms aren't free."

He didn't offer to carry some of her parcels; people got nervous when you did that, suspecting you just wanted an easy way to rob them and run off.

She nodded with a tentative smile and he took her right elbow in a firm, steadying, but not hard, grip. He steered her to the side of the crosswalk so she was walking on the clear pavement between him and the cars waiting for the light to change, each of them just far enough back so there was space for both of her feet and his left foot. He focused on the ground, looking for the glint of icy patches before putting his right foot down each time, and got them both across safely.

She heaved a sigh as they stepped up onto the sidewalk and her scent was flooded with the cleanness of relief and gratitude. Her eyes maybe held a trace of caution as she looked up at him, but she smiled and nodded.

"I'll be fine now; I can walk on the verge the rest of the way home. That was the last street I had to cross. I appreciate your help; thank you!"

He nodded back and turned to jog across Vine as the light changed, taking his own advice and avoiding the crosswalk itself. He was three blocks from home when he remembered it was Tuesday. He wasn't sure there'd be any point tonight, but no harm in checking, so he detoured back and over several blocks to the alley midway down Esterhaze, putting on a burst of speed when no one was around to see him, to make up the time he'd lost. Seeing the truck parked in the murky light down the alley, he slowed to a cool-down walk.

Jake came out of the propped-open door just as he reached the truck, and looked up at him with a smile.

"Hey, Derek. Didn't think I'd see you tonight."

"Wasn't sure you'd be here."

"Tonight more than ever. Double the usual pick-ups. People always get more generous during the holidays." Jake's voice was cheerful, but his mouth twisted, a mix of resignation and bitterness.

Derek gave him a boost up into the back of the truck. "Yeah, I guess a lot of folks just don't think about people being hungry all year round, not just at holidays."

Thanksgiving had been the same, and, before that, the Fourth.

Jake smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his mouth in its more usual cheerful slant. "It's good, though, having all this extra. It'll tide us over, and that old chest freezer you fixed up for us really helps. Marah and Bill have plans to make stew to use up the last of the venison you gave us after hunting season."

Derek nodded as he took the first couple of boxes Jake shoved to the back of the truck--canned goods, mostly, by the weight--and carried them inside. Isaac had needed the freezer gone, even been distantly glad when Derek had said he knew some people who could make good use of it, would appreciate it; Isaac had been grateful more than anything else at just not ever having to see or touch it again himself. Derek had taken it away and ordered and installed a new door liner. The original one was intact, but he didn't want to think about its existing, wouldn't pass the freezer on to new people with the gouges and scratches of Isaac's terror and hurt etched into it. Derek had clawed the old liner into pieces, his own anger burning, before bagging them and throwing them into a dumpster.

He and Jake had a routine, where Jake pushed and shoved the boxes he'd picked up from area grocery stores of donated food, both from customers and near-to-expiry items from the stores themselves, and Derek carried them inside. It took a bit longer than usual tonight, with the bit bigger haul, but they were still done in half an hour, the volunteer kitchen staff, warm in the yellow glow of the Mustard Seed's old but clean kitchen, busily unpacking, inventorying, and putting them away, with the smell of chili rich in the air.

"Stay and eat with us?" Jake tilted his head with a knowing smile up at Derek after Derek steadied him in stepping down from the back of the truck. Jake asked every time, even though Derek almost always said no. It was part of their routine.

He had stayed a few times, when there weren't as many people as usual waiting for a warm bowl of something, a slice of bread, a cup of hot coffee or tea; times when there'd be a bit left over. But he felt uncomfortable: too healthy, too well-dressed. Too safe, even when the Argents were roaming about eyeing him like he was a deer in their scopes himself.

He shook his head with a smile and Jake nodded.

"It's a night to spend with family. Have a good one, Derek." He held out his hand with a smile that lit his eyes.

Derek shook his hand and said, "You, too, Jake."

But he knew Jake wouldn't. He'd lost his wife earlier in the year. He figured Jake would stay here as long as he could, help with the clean-up after folks were gone, before heading for his own empty home.

"See you Friday."

Jake waved as he went inside and shut the door.

Derek walked the ten blocks to his loft. The sky was a vast, clear dome overhead, Orion and his dog striding confidently upwards toward the Pleiades while the half-moon reflected off the ice around him, making prisms of a couple of half-assed icicles hanging from the gutter of a dark, closed real estate office.

He'd left the heat on and a lamp burning in the loft, so at least he'd go home to warmth and light.

He was used to the silence and the emptiness that comprised much of his life these days; that felt, sometimes, like they'd become part of him, the basic building blocks of his existence. Occasionally, he even missed Peter, wherever he'd fucked off to. He recognized that for the crack in himself it was, a weakness, because, shit, he knew damned well if Peter did return, he'd be trailing mayhem and likely more hurt to everybody he touched, including Derek, than any kind of incidental good.

The area around the loft, much of it disused warehouses and vacant workshops, was still and empty as he cut through an alley shortcut and bounded up his stairs. He slowed at the top, though, seeing a square container sitting outside his door. He cast a sharp eye around, sniffing, but all he sensed was a familiar medley, nothing threatening. As he picked up the Tupperware container, Stiles' scent washed over him.

Inside, he flipped the lock on the door and dumped the container on his kitchen counter. He hung up his jacket and rubbed his cold hands together while turning on a few more lamps to cut the gloom in the big open space. The open plan had been one of the main reasons he'd bought the loft. He liked the lack of walls, with no barriers hemming him in, cutting off his view of the door, of possible lurking dangers. He'd demolished the brick wall that'd separated the bedroom from the main area when he'd bought the place. With a double bed shoved into the exposed corner, he could survey the entire room in seconds. He did that a few times most nights, waking sometimes to what might've been slight, unremembered sounds, other times from dreams he tried his damnedest to wipe from his mind.

The only walled-off area left was the bathroom, and he never bothered shutting the door there, at least not since he'd left Cora with her old pack by her choice. The entire front wall and the ceiling being glass helped, too. He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to adapt again to living inside a place divided into rooms, tiny prisons where he couldn't see farther than a few feet around himself at a time; never certain what might be coming for him outside those enclosures. He could admit his "liking" of the open design was less a preference and more a...possibly pathological need.

Whatever. Normality, as Stiles might say, was for the weak. Or at least the Stiles in his head said it, in Stiles' sardonic tone.

He stood beside the kitchen counter and contemplated the white container. As he pried off the purple lid, the chill in the plastic from its sitting outside burned against his warming hands. Inside was a sprig of holly. A piece of actual fucking holly, not plastic: four dark, shiny, spiked leaves and a clump of red berries fat as Santa's belly. He twirled it by its stem, snorting a laugh, then dumped it to pick up a note lying folded on top of three Ziplock baggies. The paper sagged open, and he saw something small and tissue-wrapped was taped to the inside. He peeled it off, unwrapped it, and stared at a microSD card sitting on his palm. He put it on the counter beside the holly.

The note, in Stiles' quick, slanted writing, gave heating instructions for--he picked up the largest baggie and turned it over, squishy in his hand--some kind of pasta with the sauce mixed in, plus a good-sized chunk of garlic bread, which he found wrapped in foil in the medium baggie. The smallest baggie was jammed with several brownie squares. He scraped the icing off the inside of the baggie and licked it from his fingers after putting them on a paper towel while he waited for the pasta and garlic bread to warm in the oven. The note ended with, "Happy listening!" and was signed with Stiles' usual _S.S. Awesome_ and a flourish. He snorted again. More like the _Good Ship Lollipop_ ; which, yes, thank you, Stiles, he did know was actually a plane, not a ship.

He ate his dinner as always: seated on his black leather couch, feet crossed at the ankles on the coffee table. Usually he read, letting the hushed stillness flutter along his nerves, the silence soothe his ears. The emptiness was reassuring, its own kind of tranquility--no current danger threatening--though it also made him feel hollow sometimes, as though his voice would echo pointlessly if he said anything aloud.

_If he speaks in an empty room and no one is around to hear it, does he make a sound?_

But tonight music, of Stiles' eclectic choosing, banished the quiet. Putting the microSD card into his phone brought up a playlist of fucking Christmas songs--though Stiles, of course, spelled it "Xmas", because Stiles _would_ \--which he stared at for a moment, then shook his head and set it going. The mix of styles and artists was as unconventional as Stiles' thinking often was, from the offbeat like B. D. Wong's "Wishing You a Drag Queen Christmas" to traditional carols in voices ranging from Johnny Cash's sexy deepness to Bob Dylan's almost painful rawness and Twisted Sister's iconoclastic take. Rufus Wainwright sang in French and Marlene Dietrich's velvety voice gave him _Der Trommelmann_ \--he played that one twice in a row, leaning back into the couch cushions with his eyes shut--plus there was something that sounded old in what was possibly Latin, but had a quick, catchy beat. Stiles leaned toward songs with strong beats.

A scattering of comic parodies were the most predictable of the lot, given it was Stiles' picks. He grinned at those ones, but it was the _Carol of the Meows_ that made him laugh out loud, startling himself.

The holly, which he'd plopped into a glass of water and set on the coffee table next to his socked feet, was the only spot of color in the room. His eyes switched between it and Stiles' note, lying open beside him on the couch: _PS: It'd be great if you could return the container tomorrow? 5 or so in the afternoon would be perfect._

Weird. But, like Derek himself, Stiles hardly counted as normal.

He shrugged mentally and went on enjoying his surprisingly tasty and filling dinner, surrounded with the comfort and security of only familiar scents and the sound of his own heartbeat in the spaces between songs.

:::::::

At five the next afternoon, he knocked on the Stilinskis' door with the washed Tupperware container dangling from his free hand. He'd washed the Ziplock baggies out, too, leaving them to air dry overnight. No point wasting them. When Stiles opened the door and broke into a big smile, Derek lifted the container to hand it over, but Stiles was already talking and turning away.

"Cool! You're right on time." He disappeared around a corner at the end of the entrance hallway. His voice drifted back. "Shut the door! You're letting the heat out, dude!"

So. Well. He went inside, shut the door, toed out of his shoes, and followed Stiles' route into the kitchen. The smell of pumpkin pie and cinnamon permeated the area, or probably the whole house. Stiles was just pulling a pie out of the oven, hands in oven mitts that looked like--

"Are you wearing _sharks_ on your hands?"

Why was it only Stiles who triggered that incredulous high note in his voice, without even trying? Just by _being_.

Stiles gave him a look of extreme disappointment. "They're space slugs, dude! Or exogorths, for the purists." He put the pie down on a cooling rack, held his arms out at Derek and snapped open both his hands, showing wide red mouths ringed with jagged teeth and a tiny _Millenium Falcon_ caught in each maw. "Please don't tell me you don't know anything about _Star Wars_ either! A guy can only take so much isolation in his geekitude."

"Geekitude? And of course I've seen _Star Wars_. Who hasn't."

"Scott." Stiles heaved a sigh. "Which hurts me to the marrow to admit, but the truth cannot be denied. Not that space slugs are in the movies, but at least you're not a total outcast."

He nudged the pie to the back of the counter beside three others, then stripped off the mitts. "Okay! Dessert is done. Or this part of dessert. We still need the whipped cream, but fortunately I shopped early and was able to snag the last spray cans of Reddi-wip right out from under the grabby hands of a pint-sized eighty-year-old. Man, that guy had an awesome evil eye. So, okay, I handed over two of the cans to him, but I think we'll have enough. I also got a couple tubs of ice cream, just in case."

Derek stared at him, feeling two steps behind as usual. "Did you actually make those pies yourself?"

Stiles narrowed his eyes at him. "Will you believe me if I say yes?"

Derek kept his mouth's wayward attempt to smile down to a twitch. "No."

"Eh, all right, but I sort of did! You can buy these empty frozen pie crusts, did you know that? Then you get a few cans of pumpkin, stir in some milk, dump it in the crusts, sprinkle cinnamon or whatever you have on top, and bake. Pies! Homemade ones! By me."

Derek shook his head, but a smile slipped out involuntarily, answering Stiles' shining eyes and bright laugh. "You win. Space slugs and homemade pies. Here." He held out the Tupperware, awkwardness descending. "Thanks. It was good. A good meal and, uh, a nice thought. The music, too."

Stiles' smile softened. He took the container and put it on the counter. "Cool. We just happened to have extra." Stiles ducked his head and ran a hand through his hair in one of the little tells he had when he was lying, before looking up and meeting Derek's eyes again. "And I didn't think you'd come over today unless I gave you a specific reason to."

Make that three steps behind.

"What?"

"Dinner, dude. You're staying, right? Because there's gonna be a lot more food than we'll ever eat and a bunch of different stuff that'd be hard to stuff into baggies, and, I dunno, I think the pie might get squashed. And that would be a killer, right? After I slaved over a hot stove for hours to make them and all."

Derek huffed a laugh, but shook his head. "I can't. You and your dad--"

"It's not just Dad and me. We got over wanting to spend Christmas alone together not long after my mom died. Those first few years were bad. Just us and our memories; too much whiskey and gaping holes and quiet--" Stiles winced. "Nah, Christmas is better with people and noise and bodies and distractions. And food! Scott's mom's bringing the potatoes and sweet potatoes and some vegetables. And, uh--"

Derek couldn't look away from Stiles' level gaze.

"Chris Argent is bringing the turkey and gravy and all that. He apparently really likes to cook! With tragic, hilarious irony, especially game birds and meats. Not that I think he hunted his own wild turkey farther than the nearest frozen section. And since Allison wanted to spend Christmas with Scott and Isaac--Isaac's coming, of course, with Scott and Ms. McCall--her dad had no one else to be with this year, so he's coming. Anyway, since Dad found out about the whole supernatural thing, he, I dunno, likes bonding with his fellow parents-in-the-know or something."

Stiles screwed up his nose, which made him look ridiculous, and made Derek even more ridiculous for finding it appealing. "But the Argents don't hunt anymore. So...that's not a problem, right?"

"I...no. It sounds great. But I, I shouldn't--"

"I want you to stay."

Derek glanced down, but when he looked up, Stiles was still watching him, sober and earnest, with unwavering, intense eyes. Stiles' hair had grown out, thick and unruly now, just as Stiles had done a lot of growing in all senses. Stiles wasn't the gangly sixteen-year-old full of brash confidence and unstoppable, naive curiosity Derek had first met that terrible day in the Preserve after he'd found Laura's body. _Half_ her body. And with her body, the knowledge he was alone now; starkly, utterly alone from then on to face both the threats he could identify ahead of time and all the ones he'd never be able to detect beforehand. All the dangers that'd wanted to kill him since he was Stiles' age on that day they met.

Stiles had grown up a lot, wasn't the kid he'd been. Almost eighteen and showing the contours of the man he'd become not only in his wide shoulders and sinewy arms that went with his added height, but in Stiles' new ability to be quiet and calm when needed, to observe before acting. It was like Stiles' innate confidence had reconfigured within a new awareness of his boundaries and weaknesses that he'd lacked two years ago, as though he were working with a clearer map of himself in his head. Maybe it was just ordinary growing up, growing into himself like everyone did, but everything Stiles did had his own idiosyncratic stamp on it.

What hadn't changed was Stiles' steely determination in going after what he wanted. He was just smarter and surer about what he wanted these days, and more calculating in his plans.

Derek recognized the radical changes he'd undergone, too, since that day. He'd been running in unadmitted fear for a long time: Fear of being cut in half and his naked body thrown away like offal for scavengers to dispose of in the woods, but fear of simply being alone, too. Alone in a world that would be terrified of him--and so hate him--if it found out what he was. Dread dogging him wherever he went, and without even the valiant, scared, brave anchor of his older sister at his side anymore. He'd made terrible mistakes that had gotten people he'd tried to help hurt, and now he was alone again.

This time, he meant to stay alone because that was safer for everyone. It was safer for Stiles, too, if Stiles would just stop being stubborn and persistent and accept it.

Just, right now, his eyes were locked with Stiles' and he couldn't make his muscles move.

"Why?" He cleared his throat as his voice croaked.

Stiles' gaze never flickered. "Because I want to spend Christmas with someone of my own."

Derek smiled, hoping only the good part of it showed, not the pain that cracked inside him. "You have Scott, and your other friends."

Stiles leaned back against the counter and shoved his hands in his pockets. "I have Scott, yeah, and that's awesome. But it's not just him and me anymore, you know? He's with Allison, and even Isaac, a lot more than me these days, and they're here because of him, not me." He tilted his head and smiled, the edged one that bundled together both his self-derision and -celebration with a cheerful sense of clear purpose. "Dad's got his friends and Scott's got his. I want someone just for me. Out in the open. In _public_."

"Stiles--"

"There's no sense in you being alone at your place and me being alone here. And I'm selfish, dude. You've always known that."

"You're not alone." He shook his head, on surer ground now because alone? No, what Stiles knew wasn't _aloneness_.

Stiles walked to him, steady and calm. "I feel alone. A lot. More each year. Scott's world's expanded; and mine has, too, in a way, but in other ways, it's just gotten emptier. I'm more on the outskirts of a lot of it these days, and, hey, I like being the center of attention."

He didn't have to look down into Stiles' eyes these days. He saw the humor in them, but also the serious intent.

"So, don't freak out on me, dude. Semi-public display incoming."

Before he could do more than blink, Stiles' arms were encircling his shoulders and pulling him in for a hug. A full-body-contact, cheeks-pressing-together, breath-against-his-ear hug. Not the first time Stiles had grabbed him and hugged him over the past few months out in the world, beyond the privacy of the loft, but usually he was more impetuous, less deliberate; a quick hug before he spun away, a dance Stiles had been inviting Derek to join him in for months with increasing, unmistakable insistence.

Stiles smelled like himself overlain with the scent of cinnamon and pumpkin and the hair gel he'd settled on after his hair grew out. Stiles' heart was pounding loudly, but his hands, with those long, clever fingers of his, were sure and strong around Derek's back, and Stiles didn't relax until Derek lifted his own arms and hugged him before easing away. Stiles' arms opened, but he ghosted his hands down Derek's arms to rest on his hips, holding him in place. Stiles' touch was light, but compelling as the warmth Derek could feel seeping through the fabric from the imprint of Stiles' fingers. Derek let his own hands linger on Stiles' square shoulders, fingertips close enough to feel the heat and throb of the pulse in his neck.

Stiles tilted his head and gave him his intimate smile, not the showy public one, his full lips in a tender curve. His voice was low and soft. "Stay for my sake, okay? So I have someone here just for me. And so I don't have to sit around thinking about you eating dinner all alone in your cold, dark, empty place. Don't ruin my Christmas, dude. That's not cool."

"My place isn't dark or cold." But he couldn't help smiling as he let his fingers caress the side of Stiles' neck, just one lingering stroke before he stepped back and crossed his arms.

Stiles pointed a finger at him, smile morphing into a grin. "Metaphor! I know you know all about those, being smarter than you look."

"Wow, thanks."

Derek cocked his head at the sound of tires.

Stiles stilled, too, listening, then nodded. "That'll be Dad." He glanced at the clock on the stove. "He was home, but got called in to deal with some kind of complicated situation. Domestic problems, always popular at the holidays. Scott and everyone'll be coming around six. With all the fooood." He rubbed his hands together. "So, chop chop. Jacket off, wash your hands, and you can make the salad. I'll supervise. Might as well play to our strengths."

Derek huffed a laugh, but he took his jacket off and let Stiles disappear with it. He heard Stiles greet his father, who came inside with a rush of fresh, cold air, then he was looking up into the Sheriff's watchful eyes. They studied him for a moment, then crinkled in a smile.

"Merry Christmas, Derek."

"Merry Christmas, sir."

"Don't let my son work you too hard."

"Hey, no inciting rebellion in my minion, Dad!"

Derek found himself rolling his eyes in synch with the Sheriff, which was just _weird_. Then the Sheriff laughed and said he was going to get changed.

When they were chopping salad stuff side by side, Stiles said, "Okay, so it's your turn."

"My turn?"

"To invite me to dinner. That's how dating works, dude."

"Dating? Is that what we're calling it now?"

"Labels." Stiles waved an airy hand. "Dating's just people spending time together so they can decide if they want to spend more time together. It's a bizarre tradition our culture's devised to make everything as convoluted as possible for ourselves. Personally, I think we should turn it on its head and just jump right into bed with each other. What d'you say?"

He coughed, but his voice still came out strangled. "Right, dinner! Dinner it is." A very long dinner; or a series of them, lasting, say, about nine weeks and four days, which just happened to be the time until Stiles turned eighteen. If somebody were to be keeping track.

Stiles was in his personal space again, eyes alight and laughter a Coke-spiked breath against Derek's cheek. "You are such a coward."

Stiles leaned in, lips a quick press against Derek's, moist and insistent with promise, then he was dancing away again as the Sheriff's step sounded on the stairs.

The doorbell chimed and the Sheriff had changed direction to answer it when Stiles' breath tickled Derek's ear from behind with a whispered, "A _public_ dinner. At Denny's or the Thai place or wherever you like. Right? We're at the next stage, dude. Not just a snack in the Preserve or ordering pizza at your place anymore, where nobody can see us." He swirled his tongue around the rim of Derek's ear and Derek shivered at Stiles' low, husky voice. "Time to come out and be seen together in public. Okay?"

Derek took a breath and gave a brief nod, accepting the latest challenge Stiles was throwing him. Stiles popped his head into Derek's view to mouth "Awesome!" at him, then was off again, grinning as he bounced out to greet Scott and his friends. Derek steadied his own heartbeat, bemused at finding himself about to have a Christmas _family_ dinner without having had any such intention or notion less than an hour ago.

He snorted as he returned to chopping green onions, settling into the familiar feeling that a lot of his future would consist of his resembling a maypole while Stiles trotted around him binding him in bright, satin ribbons. He'd come to terms with that vision awhile ago. Not that he was about to let Stiles know. Challenge was a two-way street, and he and Stiles were traveling this one together.

**Author's Note:**

> Download Stiles' playlist in a [zip file from mediafire.com](http://www.mediafire.com/download/qyqmo1z5nhl28yv/xmasmix.zip), 115 mb.


End file.
